When Amazon requests proof of authenticity: organizing ASINs and supporting documents

Has Amazon sent you a notice removing a listing or requesting documents because of doubts about whether a product is genuine (its authenticity)? This article is for sellers who aren't sure which ASIN needs what. We walk through how to read the notice, which screens to check, the invoice requirements, how to match quantities ASIN by ASIN, and how to think about ASINs you can't fully document — in the order you should work through them before you submit.

First, the basics: "authenticity check" is a seller term, and the impact can extend to your whole account

"Authenticity check" and "authenticity review" are terms sellers use among themselves. The official name of Japan's counterfeit policy is the Amazon Anti-Counterfeiting Policy (Amazon偽造品の取り組み), and the Help page on invoice requirements refers to this type of notice as a "Product Authenticity and Quality Performance Notification" (商品の品質と信頼性のパフォーマンス通知). Subject lines and wording vary from notice to notice, so judge by the substance — the reason given, which product it concerns, and what is being requested — rather than the title.

This article is based on official Help content and other materials as of September 2026. Policies and on-screen labels can change, so please also check the actual notice you received and the latest Help content.

You may receive this even without a report from a rights owner

Amazon states that it removes suspicious listings not only in response to reports from rights owners but also through its own reviews, and that it combines automation such as machine learning with review by specialists to identify violations. The fact that no rights owner contacted you does not by itself mean the determination is wrong.

The consequences aren't limited to a removed listing

Possible consequences of not complying with the policy include loss of selling privileges, withholding of funds, and destruction of inventory Amazon is holding, and if you sell products that are not genuine, this can extend to suspension or termination, including of related accounts. This policy also counts toward the Account Health Rating (アカウント健全性の評価).

Severity	Example given officially	Effect on your rating
Critical	Products determined to be counterfeit or pirated through a test buy	Rating turns red with a score of 0. Three-day grace period before suspension
High	A valid infringement notice filed by a rights owner, or a buyer report that a product is infringing or counterfeit	Affects your score. Repeated violations of the same policy bring larger deductions

For a "Critical" violation, Amazon states that your account will not be suspended if you resolve it within the three-day grace period. However, if fraud, false information, illegal activity, or similar conduct is suspected, the account can be suspended immediately without waiting out this grace period. An Account Health specialist may also call you, so first check the guidance on the Account Health (アカウント健全性) page, and confirm the emergency contact phone number under Notification Preferences (通知設定).

Under the current policy, effective July 23, 2025, reaching the limit for repeated violations of the same policy within 180 days can lead to immediate suspension, and for higher-severity violations that limit may be as low as two. The "five times for infringement-related policies" figure found in materials from before the update is no longer a reliable guide. How the score works is covered in how to check your Account Health score.

5 items to copy down from the notice: which screens to check, and in what order

Before you reply or gather documents, copy the following five items into a single table. Misreading any of them will throw off the scope of documents you need to assemble.

Item	Where to mainly check	What to copy down
① Affected ASINs/SKUs	The bottom of the first notice, the policy violation appeal page, Performance Notifications (パフォーマンス通知)	Every affected ASIN, SKU, and product name
② Scope of the action	The body of the notice, Account Health	Whether it's listing removal or account suspension
③ What's being requested	The body of the notice, each violation's details	Invoices, supplier contact information, other explanations, etc.
④ Time frame and deadline	The body of the notice	The period the documents need to cover, and the submission deadline
⑤ Where to file the appeal	The "Next Steps" column in Product Policy Compliance (商品規約の遵守), etc.	Which screen and button to submit through

Order for checking the screens

1. Check the body of the notice and the list of affected products under Performance (パフォーマンス) > Performance Notifications (パフォーマンス通知)
2. Open "View All" in Product Policy Compliance (商品規約の遵守) under Account Health (アカウント健全性), and check the removal history, current status, and the guidance in the "Next Steps" column
3. If it isn't shown there, check the suspended listings under Manage Inventory (在庫管理). Some violations, such as those related to product safety, appear separately under Manage Compliance (コンプライアンスの管理)
4. If the account itself has been suspended, check "Reactivate your selling account" at the top of the Account Health (アカウント健全性) page

Read "deadline" and "time frame" as two separate things

For the appeal questionnaire, the Japanese Help page asks you to check the "document submission deadline," while the same section of the US Help page asks you to check the time frame the documents need to cover. Note "by when you must submit" and "which period of transactions the documents must cover" as two separate items.

A notice from around 2019, posted by a seller on the Seller Forums, mentioned that the account would be deactivated "within 17 days" or after "two unsuccessful appeals," but this is a single, old example. Check the number of days and attempts allowed against the notice you actually received.

Invoice requirements: 5 items that must appear, and documents that won't be accepted

Under the Amazon Services Business Solutions Agreement, sellers are required to provide information that Amazon reasonably requests, such as invoices proving a product's authenticity. Help states that an invoice must include the following five items.

Requirement	What to check
① Issue date	Clearly shows a date within 365 days before you received the Performance Notification
② Quantity	For each ASIN, a quantity sufficient to cover your sales over the past 365 days plus your current inventory on hand
③ Per-ASIN sales records	Lists transactions for each ASIN tied to the violation (you may highlight the affected products)
④ Product code	Includes a code you can verify online, such as the product name, model number, or UPC
⑤ Supplier contact information	Name, phone number, address, website, etc. (not shared with Amazon's own retail business or other sellers)

There are also the following conditions, and Amazon may contact your supplier directly to verify the information.

• It's an unaltered original (only pricing information may be redacted; everything else must remain legible)
• The format is PDF or an image (.jpg, .png, .gif)
• It's a record of a completed transaction that has already shipped
• The supplier's existence can be confirmed through official information such as a tax registration number, or reliable third-party sources such as a brand's website or a business directory (Help describes this as having "an established web presence")

The US Help page also notes guidance such as keeping each file under 10MB, matching details like color or style to the listing for variation products, and listing every component for bundled products, but the Japanese version does not include these points — follow the Japanese Help page and the instructions in your notice instead.

If you only have a retail receipt

A simplified qualified invoice (適格簡易請求書) issued by a retailer under Japan's tax system doesn't need to name the recipient business, and receipts without a buyer's name are not unusual under tax law. That said, Amazon asks for supplier contact information, per-ASIN quantities, and product codes, and lists "buyer details" as something it checks when identifying the supplier. Whether such a receipt will be accepted can't be said in general, so identify what's missing and also see how to respond to an authenticity review when you have no invoice.

Match quantities ASIN by ASIN

What requirement ② asks about is quantity, not the number of invoices. For each ASIN, line up "sales over the past 365 days plus current inventory" against "the total quantity on your invoices," and find any shortfall first. Total your sales quantity by ASIN using a report feature in Seller Central, and note the starting date and the conditions you used off to the side of the table — this helps avoid a mismatch with your written explanation later. For inventory, it's safer to count everything on hand without omission, combining FBA and your own warehouse stock. The table below is a hypothetical example to illustrate the approach; it is not a real case.

ASIN	Sales (past 365 days)	Current inventory	Total	Invoice (issue date and quantity)	Assessment
ASIN-A	120	30	150	60 units 90 days before the notice, 40 units 200 days before	Short by 50 units
ASIN-B	40	10	50	60 units 400 days before the notice	Issue date falls outside requirement ① (needs confirmation)
ASIN-C	20	5	25	30 units 120 days before the notice, model number matches too	Fully documented

For ASIN-A, the invoice falls within the time frame but is still short by 50 units, so check whether an invoice from another purchase still exists, or whether you can obtain a formal document from the supplier. For ASIN-B, even though the quantity is sufficient, the issue date does not fall "within 365 days before you received the notice." Help does not explain how to treat inventory purchased more than 365 days ago, so mark it "needs confirmation" and check the instructions in your notice. Only mark an ASIN "fully documented" once the quantity, time frame, and product code line up and the other requirements, such as supplier contact information, are also met. Whether it's actually accepted depends on Amazon's review.

Assemble your submission package: the order to arrange it in, and a pre-submission checklist

The appeal guidelines call for a concise, fact-based explanation; the root cause and the corrective actions you took (with the date each change was implemented and any related documents); evidence for every ASIN under review; and highlighting of key parts such as the ASIN and supplier name. Arrange your submission in the following order so the explanation and evidence for each ASIN can be traced together.

1. Explanation: what you're submitting, the situation for each ASIN, and (where applicable) the root cause and the corrective actions you took
2. A list of ASINs and your quantity-matching table
3. Invoices for each ASIN (PDF or image, with the relevant line highlighted)
4. Supplier contact information and anything you can confirm through official sources (for example, a Qualified Invoice Issuer registration number that can be looked up on the National Tax Agency's public site — this is not something Amazon specifies)

Where highlighting ends and "an unaltered original" begins isn't officially explained. Don't change any content — numbers, dates, names — keep the original file stored separately, and keep any markings to a minimum.

Sample explanation

Below is a sample based on the hypothetical example above, for the case where a shortfall was found for ASIN-A. This is not a real case, so rewrite it to match your own facts, and describe only causes you've actually confirmed.

For the ASINs listed in the notice, we are submitting invoices issued by our suppliers. Each invoice has the relevant ASIN's line highlighted, and how the sales quantity, inventory quantity, and invoice quantity correspond for each ASIN is shown in the attached matching table.
For ASIN-A, we found that the invoice quantity is 50 units short of the combined sales and inventory total. These 50 units were purchased from (supplier name) around (time period), and we did not receive an invoice for them. We are currently confirming with the supplier whether they can issue a formal document. The cause was that we had no standard in place for checking whether an invoice was received and what it should state at the time of purchase, so we purchased without receiving an invoice. We stopped listing ASIN-A on (date), and starting (date) we introduced an internal standard limiting purchases to suppliers that can provide invoices, along with a per-ASIN ledger for tracking.

Don't include emotional language or mention unrelated matters. For how to write up the cause and corrective actions, also see how to build a plan of action.

If your submission is rejected, fix the difference from last time

If an appeal that includes invoices is rejected, you're directed to check the Performance Notification for the reason it wasn't accepted. Identify which requirement was missing, fix it, and avoid resubmitting the same documents unchanged.

Also note that for an account suspension appeal, you're told a response can take up to about two days. If you're asked for additional information, submit it through "View Request" on the Account Health (アカウント健全性) page.

If some ASINs lack full documentation: consider each path separately

Consider the path for each ASIN based on its own situation. Whichever path you take, the outcome depends on Amazon's review.

Situation	Possible path	Points to keep in mind
Documents meet the requirements	File the appeal following the on-screen instructions	Gather evidence for every ASIN
You have documents, but the quantity or time frame is partly short	State the shortfall in quantity and the reason honestly, and file with the root cause and the corrective actions you took (with implementation dates)	Don't hide the shortfall or fill it in with documents from a different transaction
You believe the determination itself is wrong	File a dispute	You need evidence showing the detection was mistaken
You suspect an error in how FBA handled the item	Request a Bin Check (ビンチェック) and file a dispute using the result	Request it via Get Support (サポートを受ける) → "My issue isn't listed" (私の問題は掲載されていません). The only acceptable evidence is a resolved case ID
The complaint originated from a rights owner	If you have a contractual relationship, ask the rights owner to retract it; if it's mistaken, reply to the notice with an invoice or order number	Follow the steps under the Intellectual Property Policy
You cannot prove it through documents	Choose not to resume selling. Check the notice and the on-screen instructions to see whether you can request the inventory be returned or request to abandon ownership	Inventory being held during an investigation may be destroyed if you don't submit the requested information or documents by the stated deadline, or if it's determined to be an ineligible product (for example, selling counterfeit goods or submitting forged documents). Check the notice and on-screen guidance to see whether a return or abandonment of ownership is possible

A violation is removed when, for example, a dispute confirms it was a mistake, or, for certain violation types, when the seller acknowledges the violation and confirms the product will not be relisted — simply stopping sales does not make the violation disappear. Check the screen for which options are available to you. Even a violation removed through an appeal may still count toward the repeat-violation limit within 180 days if you did not dispute that the violation occurred. If the complaint originated with a rights owner, also see sorting out a trademark infringement or counterfeit allegation.

How inventory and funds are handled

FBA inventory suspected of being counterfeit or similar may have some or all of it held during the investigation, and it can be destroyed if you don't provide the requested information by the deadline. Under the agreement (FBA Service Terms, section F-7.2), for inventory determined to be unsellable, if you're notified that removal is required — for example because of an account suspension — and don't provide instructions to return or dispose of it within 30 days (or the period set by an applicable program policy), Amazon may dispose of it; and if the seller is found to have engaged in fraud or illegal activity, Amazon can dispose of it immediately. Add the deadline for returning or disposing of inventory to the "④ Time frame and deadline" item in the table you copied down from the notice.

Funds are withheld for 90 days as a rule when they're determined to carry risk (and may be extended if the risk or investigation continues), and if your account is determined to be used for purposes such as listing counterfeit goods, funds are withheld until you're confirmed to have no issues (how to check on withheld funds after a suspension). If your account has been suspended, see an overview of the path from account suspension to reinstatement.

What not to do

Selling counterfeit goods isn't limited to consequences on Amazon — it can also lead to civil or criminal liability (Japan's Trademark Act includes penalty provisions for trademark infringement). Avoid the following actions during your response.

• Creating or altering documents: Don't create your own invoice, rewrite dates or quantities, or have a supplier issue an invoice that doesn't reflect the facts, such as one that's backdated. Submitting a forged document can itself be a reason for inventory destruction or suspension. Forging or altering a document can fall under Japan's Penal Code provisions on forgery of private documents, so consult a lawyer if you're unsure (what to do if you're accused of forging or altering an invoice).
• Filling a quantity gap with a different document: Don't submit an invoice for a different ASIN or a document from a different transaction as evidence for the ASIN in question. Explain any quantity shortfall honestly, as a shortfall.
• Giving an explanation your documents don't back up: The Seller Code of Conduct requires that you not engage in misleading conduct even in your communications with Amazon.
• Continuing to sell on another account: You may generally maintain only one Seller Central account per region you sell in, unless you have a legitimate business reason and every account is being operated without issues. A new account created to get around a suspension violates the policy.

Preparing for the next notice: acceptance criteria at the time of purchase

Turn the invoice requirements into a checklist for purchasing and listing. It's also worth reviewing ASINs not named in the notice against the same standard, for peace of mind.

Keep invoices filed so you can look them up by ASIN

Receive invoices in an unalterable format such as PDF, and store them linked to a ledger you can search by ASIN, purchase date, and quantity. Note also that under tax law, corporations are generally required to retain books and transaction-related documents for seven years from the day after the filing deadline for their tax return (retention periods for sole proprietors may differ, so check with a tax accountant). Day-to-day management after reinstatement is covered in reviewing your operations after reinstatement.

Frequently asked questions

Q. If only the product page was removed, is it okay to wait and see?

A. We don't recommend it. The counterfeit policy counts toward the Account Health Rating. Decide how to respond within the notice's deadline, following the guidance in the "Next Steps" column.

Q. If I have a Letter of Authorization (LOA) from the manufacturer, do I still need an invoice?

A. The Japanese Help page on invoice requirements doesn't mention letters of authorization, and it isn't explained as a substitute for an invoice. Start by preparing the documents your notice actually requests.

Q. Is it okay to ask my supplier to reissue an invoice?

A. Having your supplier issue a formal document themselves, based on an actual transaction, is different from you creating a document. That said, how a document issued after the fact is evaluated, and how it relates to the issue-date requirement, is not officially explained. Limit yourself to asking the supplier whether they can issue a formal document. Never ask them to issue one with a date, quantity, or item name that differs from the actual transaction — doing so risks amounting to forging or altering a document.

Q. I have many affected ASINs and documents for only some of them.

A. Use your matching table to separate the situation by ASIN and consider the path for each. Because Help asks for evidence for every ASIN under review, it's better not to leave out ASINs without documents without explanation, and instead state the facts as they are.

Summary

• Read the notice by its substance, not its subject line, and copy down the affected ASINs, the scope of the action, what's being requested, the time frame and deadline, and where to file the appeal
• Check invoices against five points: issue date, quantity, per-ASIN records, product code, and supplier contact information
• Match "sales plus inventory" against invoice quantities for each ASIN, and find shortfalls or out-of-range dates first
• For ASINs without full documentation, consider a separate path depending on the situation — partial shortfall, mistaken determination, or unable to prove
• Don't create or alter documents, or give explanations that don't match the facts. Check and keep invoices at the time of purchase

The more affected ASINs you have, the more important it is to put them into a table and verify the facts one by one. If you're unsure how to proceed, consider checking the deadline and consulting a specialist early.

*This article provides a general explanation. The appropriate response in individual cases depends on the circumstances.

Further reading

When Amazon flags a forged or altered invoice: verifying facts and using genuine documents Read article → Amazon trademark and counterfeit allegations: organizing sourcing evidence and rights information Read article → Responding to an Amazon authenticity review: checking evidence and appealing without an invoice Read article →